Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Biography

The French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec depicted the Parisian night
life of cafés, bars, and brothels (houses of prostitution, where
sexual acts are traded for money)—the world that he inhabited at
the height of his career.

Crippled childhood

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a direct descendant of an aristocratic family
of a thousand years, was born on November 24, 1864, at Albi, France, to
Alphonse-Charles and Adèle Zoë. His wild and colorful father
lived in moderate luxury, hunting with falcons and collecting exotic
weapons. Henri began to draw at an early age and found the arts an
escape from his loving but over-protective family.

In 1878 Toulouse-Lautrec suffered a fall and broke one femur (thigh
bone). A year later he fell again and broke the other one. His legs did
not heal properly. His torso developed normally, but his legs stopped
growing and were permanently deformed. Many attribute his health
problems to the fact that his parents were first cousins.

In 1882, encouraged by his first teachers—the animal painters
René Princeteau and John Lewis Brown—Toulouse-Lautrec
decided to devote himself to painting, and that year he left for Paris.
Enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts, he entered the studio of
Fernand Cormon. In 1884 Toulouse-Lautrec settled in Montmartre, an area
in north Paris, where he stayed from then on, except for short visits to
Spain, where he admired the works of El Greco (1541–1614) and
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). In England he visited
celebrated writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and painter James
McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). At one point Toulouse-Lautrec lived
near painter Edgar Degas (1834–1917), whom he valued above all
other contemporary artists (artists from his time) and by whom he was
influenced. From 1887 his studio was on the rue Caulaincourt next to the
Goupil printshop, where he could see examples of the Japanese prints of
which he was so fond.

By habit Toulouse-Lautrec stayed out most of the night. He frequented
many entertainment spots in Montmartre, especially the Moulin Rouge
cabaret (a nightclub with entertainment). He also drank a great deal.
His loose lifestyle caught up with him—he suffered a breakdown in
1899. His mother had him committed to an asylum, a hospital for the
mentally ill, at Neuilly, France. He recovered and set to work again,
but not for very long. He died on September 9, 1901, at the family
estate at Malromé, France.

The influence of Parisian nightlife

Toulouse-Lautrec moved freely among the dancers, the prostitutes, the
artists, and the intellectuals of Montmartre. From 1890 on his tall,
lean cousin, Dr. Tapié de Celeyran, accompanied him, and the two,
depicted in
At the Moulin Rouge
(1892), made a colorful pair. Despite his deformity,
Toulouse-Lautrec was extremely social and readily made friends and
inspired trust. He came to be regarded as one of the people of
Montmartre, for he was an outsider like them, fiercely independent, but
with a great ability to understand everything around him.

Among the painter's favorite subjects were the cabaret dancers
Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, and La Goulue and her partner, Valentin le
Désossé, the contortionist (an acrobat who demonstrates
extraordinary bodily positions). Through the seriousness of his
intention, Toulouse-Lautrec depicted his subjects in a style bordering
on, but rising above, caricature (exaggeration). He took subjects who
often dressed in disguise and makeup as a way of life and stripped away
all that was not essential, thus revealing each as an
individual—but a prisoner of his own destiny.

The two most direct influences on Toulouse-Lautrec's art were the
Japanese print, as seen in his slanted angles and flattened forms, and
Degas, from whom he derived the tilted perspective, cutting of figures,
and use of a railing to separate the spectator from the painted scene,
as in
At the Moulin Rouge.
But the genuine feel of a world of wickedness and the harsh, artificial
colors used to create it were Toulouse-Lautrec's own.

Unusual types performing in a grand show attracted Toulouse-Lautrec. In
his painting
In the Circus Fernando: The Ringmaster
(1888) the nearly grotesque (distorted and ugly), strangely cruel
figure of the ringmaster is the center around which the horse and
bareback rider must revolve. From 1892 to 1894 Toulouse-Lautrec produced
a series of interiors of brothels, where he actually lived for a while
and became the companion of the women. As with his paintings of
cabarets, he

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Reproduced by permission of the

Corbis Corporation

.

caught the feel of the brothels and made no attempt to glamorize them.
In the
Salon in the Rue des Moulins
(1894) the prostitutes are shown as ugly and bored beneath their
makeup; the madam (woman in charge) sits quietly in their midst. He
neither sensationalized nor drew a moral (having to do with right and
wrong) lesson but presented a certain interpretation of this side of
society for what it was—no more and no less.

Color lithography and the poster

Toulouse-Lautrec broadened the range of lithography (the process of
printing on metal) by treating the tone more freely. His
strokes became more summary (executed quickly) and the planes more
unified. Sometimes the ink was speckled on the surface to bring about a
great textural richness. In his posters he combined flat images (again
the influence of the Japanese print) with type. He realized that if the
posters were to be successful their message had to make an immediate and
forceful impact on the passerby. He designed them with that in mind.

Toulouse-Lautrec's posters of the 1890s established him as the
father of the modern large-scale poster. His best posters were those
advertising the appearance of various performers at the Montmartre
cabarets, such as the singer May Belfort, the female clown Cha-U-Kao,
and Loïe Fuller of the Folies-Bergère.

In an 1893 poster of dancer Jane Avril, colored partially in bright red
and yellow, she is pictured kicking her leg. Below her, in gray tones so
as not to detract attention, is the diagonally placed hand of the
violinist playing his instrument. There is some indication of
floorboards but no furniture or other figures. The legend reads simply
"Jane Avril" in white letters and "Jardin de
Paris" in black letters.